Getting handier with the sewing machine

Well since I have nothing else to blog about and I am sort of proud of how this turned out, here is a costume I made for Bruiser.





I dyed the sweats but made the rest. I had no pattern or guide, just a picture in my head of how I wanted it to turn out. Honesty, I really like it.
Can anyone guess what he is?

Life is crazy

My life being crazy translates into posting less. When I have to balance my time cleaning my house, helping three kids with homework I barely understand, feeding and taking care of 5 dogs, baking and overseeing a monthly bake sale for the rescue, attempting to teach 12 eight year old cub scouts something, planning a Halloween birthday party for my soon to be seven year old, and working on my projects; things like blogging kind of fall to the wayside. Sorry about that, hopefully after Halloween and parent teacher conferences and bake sales are over I will have some time untill it starts over again next month.

The Justice's injustice: Take 2

Saw this article tonight. I knew that outrage would ensue, as it should. We need to hold our public servants responsible for their misuse of office. I think this was a misuse. Maybe I am wrong but allowing a personal prejudice to influence a public servant job is absolutely not okay. I hope he faces consequences.

I am a firm believer that crime can be committed equally across the spectrum of people. I am also a firm believer that miracles for the betterment of humanity can also be committed across that spectrum. No one's race, religion, or sexual orientation defines who they are and/or what actions they will take in their lives. Children from low class homes can and do persevere, often achieving more greatness than the well off kid does. Does the well off kid have it easier? Sure financially. I think the struggling kid though is better off morally and socially because they value what they achieve more and do more with their greatness. No one's life status is a definition of their potential. Saying a biracial child will have a hard time may be true in some places but if you give a child the potential to succeed in how they are raised and loved then even the kid who lives in a box can become president.

Holy rotten Justice Batman!

I read this tonight in my news scrolling and am just stunned. Yes I know prejudice is a part of humanity. People judge. It is a fact of the world that every one of us will have someone else judge our choices. However those in the legal fields have an obligation to not let their personal judgments taint their legal choices. Discrimination has no place in law. We make a huge deal about equality and fairness and we expect our judges and lawyers and law enforcers to embrace that equality. To have someone who deals with the law allow his own prejudice to influence how he does his job just appalls me. Maybe this will tick people off and maybe I am wrong in my reading of this. Tell me what you think!

Finally done!

I got my website up finally. Many thanks to KWalshDesigns and the work she did for me!! Check it out and tell me what you think! Read Lila Williams.

Yet another pathetic excuse for a parent.

So I am working on getting rid of a headache and was just catching up on my news. A link on CNN's Nancy Grace's web page said "Toddler found dead in trash." I had to read it because stories like this just rip my heart out. Then I read the story and not only did my heart break but the anger factor went through the roof. I am so tired of reading and hearing about women who kill their children rather than ask for help or give them up. Race is no excuse, age is no excuse, laziness is no excuse, IQ is no excuse. There is no reason that children should die. Infants have safe haven recourse and older kids do have options. You can give up your rights. I know there can be legal ramifications but this has got to stop. I can't have any more children for a variety of reasons but we would love having more. We would adopt in a heartbeat and have actually talked about adopting a sibling pair from foster care once Squeak is older. My husband was in the system purely because his parents didn't want him. It was so hard sure, but better than being neglected and starved and abused due to shear stupidity and laziness. I miss the days when family was the most important and raising the children as a group was encouraged. It does take a village and all of us need to step up if we see a child in need so that these type of senseless acts never happen again.

We survived!

We are officially part of society again today as we are no longer contagious with the dreaded swine flu. The illness part of it wasn't any worse than any other cold.
What was so hard for us was the confinement. The kids had to stay home from school for a week. They felt well enough to fight and terrorize each other but were not allowed out in public. Once they were feeling better, I kicked them outside during the day when all of the other kids were in school. They had to come inside promptly at 3 pm and work on homework.
Today they can go back to school. FREEDOM!!!

Swine flu

I know the swine flu thing has been beat to death but now I have it (I think). I was pretty prepared because both times there was a local panic over it, I went to the store and got masks, hand sanitizer, meds ect. What I wasn't prepared for was how completely horrible I would feel. The kids got it first and are already almost over it. I on the other hand just came down with the worst of it this morning. I seriously want to crawl into a hole and die. I have a headache that makes my migranes feel like a walk in the park. My throat is sore and swollen, its hard to breathe. As fast as the kids felt better, I don't think we got it really bad. If this is mild, I am grateful we didn't get it really bad. I will keep you up to date on if I get better as fast as the boys. In the meantime, I have three hyper active boys home from school for a week. That might prove to be worse than the flu.

Mattress Woes!

With all the space we have now we wanted a guest bed. We also hate our bedroom set. We are not fans of particle board. We bought our set as a gift for Hub's brother and then discovered it would not fit into the room we needed it to so we kept it and gave him our raw pine set. I miss that set, lol. anyway we figured if we had to buy a mattress why not buy us a bigger one and put the old mattress and bed frame in the guest room. So we went online to search. We love our queen so we decided to look at the same model and name brand but in king. Found a great deal on USMattress.com. Their site said two-day delivery was available and we were stoked. We needed it by the end of the week so that we could have the guest bed for family coming in this weekend. So I ordered it and kept waiting through the process for the place to confirm shipping. It never came. I called and was told it never gave me the option because our mattress was not available for quick shipping. So I canceled the order. I need a bed this weekend not in 3 weeks. Well my money has yet to be returned because it can take "Up to 4 business days." Lovely. Anyway I went to a local furniture store and they had the bed I need cheaper than what I found online. We went with Englander instead of Spring Air. 5lb Memory foam layer on top of individually wrapped innerspring. Sooooooo excited. Iwould totally recommend Englander. They are super affordable and a lot of the big name actually use the Englander insides wrapped in their own covers at a huge price jump. Total score on the bed front. Now just to get my money back from the dumb online place. Luckily they took paypal so I can go after them if needed to get my money.